x7eggert wrote:You are thinking much too complicatedly. Just throw the supernova into the black hole before it goes boom.

That's a terrible idea. Most of the star's mass wouldn't fall into the black hole and instead produce an accretion disk. Now, accretion disks are fantastically efficient at converting matter to energy (an order of magnitude or so better than supernovae) - hence the resulting miniquasar would release more radiation than the supernova ever could.

x7eggert wrote:You are thinking much too complicatedly. Just throw the supernova into the black hole before it goes boom.

That's a terrible idea. Most of the star's mass wouldn't fall into the black hole and instead produce an accretion disk. Now, accretion disks are fantastically efficient at converting matter to energy (an order of magnitude or so better than supernovae) - hence the resulting miniquasar would release more radiation than the supernova ever could.

(Not too long ago I sketched an outline for a sequel to the fan sequel Significant Digits to the fanfic Harry Potter And The Methods of Rationality, which talks a lot about an anthropomorphized Time in the context of how magic time travel works, and also has Harry on a lifelong quest to vanquish Death, just in the sense of keeping everyone alive but also Death is anthropomorphized a bit when talking about that, though not a real actual character. In my sketch of a sequel, it ultimately turns out that the primordial state of the universe is one in which immaterial beings of pure and unlimited magic fought in a timeless chaos wherein each changed the universe as they pleased constantly undoing each others changes thus preventing any sort of arrow of time from ever emerging, and that primordial war was ended with one or some of them magically bound all of them such that every change imposed was of a fixed magnitude and always increased the total disorder of the universe, thus imposing entropy and all the laws of physics with it, and in the process an arrow of time, and with that, the inevitability of death. Human magic, which can reverse entropy, is a development out of a long game played by many of those beings to break that restriction, through the person of Harry, and when he learns this he is faced with something of a dilemma: ought he at last defeat Death, knowing that in doing so he will inevitably also unmake Time, and return the universe to a timeless chaos?)

(Not too long ago I sketched an outline for a sequel to the fan sequel Significant Digits to the fanfic Harry Potter And The Methods of Rationality, which talks a lot about an anthropomorphized Time in the context of how magic time travel works, and also has Harry on a lifelong quest to vanquish Death, just in the sense of keeping everyone alive but also Death is anthropomorphized a bit when talking about that, though not a real actual character. In my sketch of a sequel, it ultimately turns out that the primordial state of the universe is one in which immaterial beings of pure and unlimited magic fought in a timeless chaos wherein each changed the universe as they pleased constantly undoing each others changes thus preventing any sort of arrow of time from ever emerging, and that primordial war was ended with one or some of them magically bound all of them such that every change imposed was of a fixed magnitude and always increased the total disorder of the universe, thus imposing entropy and all the laws of physics with it, and in the process an arrow of time, and with that, the inevitability of death. Human magic, which can reverse entropy, is a development out of a long game played by many of those beings to break that restriction, through the person of Harry, and when he learns this he is faced with something of a dilemma: ought he at last defeat Death, knowing that in doing so he will inevitably also unmake Time, and return the universe to a timeless chaos?)

You have a million better things to do with your time than write a sequel to HPMOR, of all things.

(I couldn't even get through the first chapter. Harry's entire history changed because Petunia married a super-rational scientist instead of Vernon, except the guy only married her because she wheedled a beauty potion out of Lily. If he was really as rational as all that, he would have married her either way.)

xkcdfan wrote:(I couldn't even get through the first chapter. Harry's entire history changed because Petunia married a super-rational scientist instead of Vernon, except the guy only married her because she wheedled a beauty potion out of Lily. If he was really as rational as all that, he would have married her either way.)

Depends on how much utility he assigns to physical attractiveness - also known as a combination of traits that, (pre-)historically are associated with reproductive fitness...

For another fictional reference, Charles Stross' Iron Sunrise starts with a star going supernova, and the inhabitants of an orbiting world getting a clue because of the neutrino pulse lighting up the atmosphere, moments before the wave of not-neutrinos hits them; the other particles being just a fraction slower to reach the planet because of having to navigate the collapsing mass of the star.

xkcdfan wrote:(I couldn't even get through the first chapter. Harry's entire history changed because Petunia married a super-rational scientist instead of Vernon, except the guy only married her because she wheedled a beauty potion out of Lily. If he was really as rational as all that, he would have married her either way.)

Sorry to be quoting a post that you just made last year, but since I just read this fic yesterday, and this thread just got bumped today, I couldn't resist.

You're grossly oversimplifying, nearly to or past the point of inaccuracy. The main point of departure here isn't the beauty potion, it's the fact that Petunia broke up with Vernon Dursley instead of marrying him. We don't know if the Michael Verres from the canon universe would have married the Petunia Evans from the canon universe because she was less attractive. We're certain that the Michael Verres from the canon universe couldn't have married the Petunia Evans from the canon universe because that Petunia Evans wasn't single when the two met. Verres had never met pre-beauty potion Petunia, and Petunia only took the beauty potion after she broke up with Vernon Dursley.

That said, the utility of attractiveness isn't necessarily zero. If sex in a relationship is an important part of a relationship to you, and/or not having sex outside the relationship is an important part of a relationship to you, than being in a relationship with someone you want to have sex with more than other people is a good strategy.

If sex is not an important part of a relationship to you, then I don't really see any utility in relationships.

and all that said, the true point of departure isn’t even really that, but rather timey wimey prophecy related spoilery stuff caused that to happen so as to prevent the end of the world due to the true point of departure.

Pfhorrest wrote:and all that said, the true point of departure isn’t even really that, but rather timey wimey prophecy related spoilery stuff caused that to happen so as to prevent the end of the world due to the true point of departure.